Nick Hardwick, chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), called for a national debate over how police maintain public order and demanded much tougher political accountability, warning that police should remember they were "the servants not the masters" of the people.
He is also seeking the necessary resources for the watchdog to conduct more investigations independently from police - as it is doing over the death of Ian Tomlinson, the news vendor who died after being caught up in the G20 protests - and expanding its remit in cases where there is evidence of wider systematic problems.
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Hardwick also revealed that the widespread use of mobile phones by protesters to take photographs and video footage of the clashes was providing invaluable evidence.
He suggested that had such footage been available during a violent confrontation between police and Countryside Alliance activists protesting over the hunting ban five years ago the outcome might have been different.
"What's been important with all these pictures is we have got such a wide picture of what happened," he said. "I think that is challenging the police: they have to respond to the fact that they are going to be watched, there is going to be this evidence of what they have done."
Hardwick said that while the IPCC had attempted a number of prosecutions over the Countryside Alliance demonstration these had failed: "We had to go with what the court said but we were very very surprised at some of the verdicts. I don't think this would happen now because there would be all this evidence."
